Kids need the opportunity to make choices about what they learn and how they learn it, writes Alex Valencic. This doesn’t mean education becomes a free-for-all. It’s a call to action for us to know our students and help spark a love of learning that will last a lifetime.
Class Apps / Feedback from Students
by Curtis Chandler · Published 06/07/2020 · Last modified 07/18/2020
Collecting feedback from students about how his teaching can improve is often “eye-opening and sobering,” says Curtis Chandler, and that’s certainly been true during remote learning. Find out about the polling tools and questions he uses – and what students have to say.
Bryan Goodwin & Elizabeth Ross Hubbell make a compelling argument that teachers can improve their impact on student learning by using a “do-confirm” checklist based on 12 essential daily touchstones that represent current research on what works best. Pilots do!
In What Schools Don’t Teach, the authors provide strategies to make reasonable changes within our own classrooms that will help students grow the skills, attitudes and characteristics they need to be successful in a changing world, says Laura Von Staden.
Even with all the usual basics in place, the small things novice teachers do could be wreaking havoc on your whole classroom management system. Middle school veteran Jennifer Gonzalez identifies unproductive habits, along with more effective alternatives.
Teaching experts Annette Breaux & Todd Whitaker are back with more teaching ideas from the 2nd edition of Seven Simple Secrets. This time it’s advice on keeping instruction real for today’s students. Read the classroom tales of Teacher A & Teacher B.
A week of sitting in a teaching seminar has left Sarah Cooper inspired but also thoughtful about how students experience daily classroom life. “I felt new empathy for having to follow teachers’ instructions all day long.” Read her 10 takeaways.
Teaching experts Annette Breaux & Todd Whitaker contrast the typical characteristics of effective and ineffective classrooms using two simple but compelling bullet lists. Excerpted from the 2nd edition of their bestselling book Seven Simple Secrets with new teachers especially in mind.
The Teaching Life / Working Draft
by Kevin Hodgson · Published 07/08/2014 · Last modified 11/24/2019
Professional growth & student engagement should be “a central daily goal of every teacher in every classroom,” writes our blogger Kevin Hodgson. He points to THRIVE, a new book by teacher leader Meenoo Rami, as a source of guidance and inspiration.
Mary Tarashuck recalls the holiday Venn diagrams she and her 4th graders organized for the first grade kids and imagines some circles of her own – celebrating her colleagues and her past accomplishments and setting some goals for the future.
